Heroes he learns to understand and to
admire in books; but he is not forward to recognise the
heroic under the traits of any contemporary man, and least of
all in a brawling, dirty, and eccentric teacher. But as the
years went by, and the scholars of Yoshida continued in vain
to look around them for the abstractly perfect, and began
more and more to understand the drift of his instructions,
they learned to look back upon their comic school-master as
upon the noblest of mankind.
The last act of this brief and full existence was already
near at hand. Some of his work was done; for already there
had been Dutch teachers admitted into Nangasaki, and the
country at large was keen for the new learning. But though
the renaissance had begun, it was impeded and dangerously
threatened by the power of the Shogun. His minister - the
same who was afterwards assassinated in the snow in the very
midst of his bodyguard - not only held back pupils from going
to the Dutchmen, but by spies and detectives, by imprisonment
and death, kept thinning out of Japan the most intelligent
and active spirits. It is the old story of a power upon its
last legs - learning to the bastille, and courage to the
block; when there are none left but sheep and donkeys, the
State will have been saved. But a man must not think to cope
with a Revolution; nor a minister, however fortified with
guards, to hold in check a country that had given birth to
such men as Yoshida and his soldier-follower.
Pages:
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204